About Alcoholics Anonymous (AA)

Alcoholics Anonymous is a fellowship of men and women who share their experience strength and hope with each other that they may solve their common problem and help others to recover from alcoholism. The only requirement for membership is a desire to stop drinking. There are no dues or fees for AA membership; we are self-supporting through our own contributions. AA is not allied with any sect, denomination, politics, organisation or institution; does not wish to engage in any controversy, neither endorses nor opposes any causes. Our primary purpose is to stay sober and help other alcoholics to achieve sobriety.

Is AA for you?

If you seem to be having trouble with your drinking or if your drinking has reached the point where it worries you a bit, you may be interested to know something about Alcoholics Anonymous and the AA programme of recovery.

We only ask that you consider your drinking carefully and keep an open mind. Only you can determine whether or not alcohol has truly become a problem for you. You are welcome to join us at any time or call a fellow on our helpline. Our phone is always answered by someone who has been going through the same questions you have concerning your drinking habits. AA is a community of more than 2 million people who have put their drinking problems behind them and are leading “normal” day-to-day lives in sobriety.

Where it began…

In the beginning, American AA members holidaying on the Riviera in the 60s and 70s held impromptu meetings on beaches and in hotel lobbies on the seafront of Cannes. It was from these fledgling beginnings that AA spread to the towns and cities along the coast. In 1978, Cannes became the venue for the first official AA meeting on the Côte d’Azur. The meeting was held in a church hall just behind the Carlton Hotel. That meeting had its troubles—it closed, it re-opened—but was finally established in 1986. In Nice, in December 1983, a bi-lingual Frenchman and two Americans started what was once the longest continuous running AA meeting on the coast. In 1987, an expat member who’d some months earlier started the first-ever AA meeting in Monaco in any language, went looking for a more suitable meeting room. “That’s a coincidence,” said the priest from a local Monaco church. “We pray for a particular cause each year, and this year it’s for alcoholics.” In those early days, French AA, already well established in the area, provided us with our first English-language telephone service in 1988. They also helped us get our first meeting lists printed (by prisoners, inside the local prison, who produced a folded card design). New meetings emerged in Saint-Tropez in the 80s, Antibes in February 1990, Valbonne in November 1991, and Aix-en-Provence in 1993.

New meetings also formed in Vence and Nice in 2004. Today there’s even a meeting in Montpellier, 330 km from Nice. Whether on the Riviera beaches, in hotel lobbies, or the basement rooms of local churches and other rented rooms, day after day AA in the south of France has grown from those impromptu summer meetings to its present 30 meetings-per-week Fellowship..